Creative Catalyst opens the doors to the wide world of visual art for participants aged 7 years +. With students as old as 16 it features a wonderful multi-aged learning experience using a broad range of art materials and techniques to explore and enjoy. There are great opportunities for older students to participate in extension programs and develop their own projects.

Themed workshop projects are selected from an astounding repertoire developed by Artist and Artistic Director Teffany Thiedeman and the Creative Catalyst collaboration of Canberra visual artists.

Emphasising inspiration, imagination, adaptability and positivity the Creative Catalyst approach is a hallmark of Canberra as the creative capital with the future of our nation’s bright sparks in mind.

Do you love children and have high energy? Do you want to work in a creative and supportive work environment helping kids to learn through wholistic experiences of art, dram, cooking, gardening and play?

We are after a motivated and engaged facilitator for our Sparks Program

En Plein Air – Summertime Sunshine seems to be a theme

Sparks imaginative play

World Cooking

We are Sparks!

Children in the food garden

Speak up!

If you have a WWVP and at least a cert 3 in Early Childhood education and are after a permanent part time position then contact us!

Imagine a miniature tea set, painted in blue and white, perfect for tiny people to use. You could set up a party on a small table under a giant tree and invite all the pixies, fairies, and goblins you know. At last, you’ll have the right tableware to hold a Pixies tea party!!

Miniature tea set

Explore the pleasures and skills involved in working clay on a micro scale. Here anything is possible – make a magical set of ceramic goblets, tea cups or jugs. Then add all the whimsical elements and flourishes befitting the Fae Folk. Finally finish your mini domestic ware with some surface decoration in colour and line work using ceramic underglazes.

Open your imagination to a world of science fiction/ fantasy incorporating technology and aesthetic designs inspired by 19th-century Victorian industrial steam-powered machinery.

Howl’s Moving Castle sketch by Miyazaki

This Art & Literature genre has been inspired by writers like Jules Verne (30000 Leagues Under the Sea) and HG Wells (War of the Worlds) and embraced by artists and animators like Miyazaki (Howl’s Moving castle)

This workshop will get everyone sketching wild machines – we will start by looking at a selection of visually stimulating objects for the theme: old watches, leather boxes, old fashioned keys, test tubes, an ancient typewriter, binoculars, leather diaries and old books, gears and cogs, old style telephone, bird in a glass box, pinned butterflies.

Finally we will be using a monochromatic palette in watercolour and metallic washes to add some age, rust and character to our Steampunk masterpiece.

Growing plants is fun! Especially in a unique Animal Planter. Use the plant to look like hair, fur or a tree sprouting right out of the back of a beastie.

Ceramic Whale Planter spouting a plant!

We’ll think about animal shapes that would work well to grow a plant in. Some animal bodies will definitely work better than others! You need sturdy legs (or no legs like a whale) and no thin whiskery fragile bits sticking out waiting to get snapped off. We’ll take a look at simplified streamlined shapes like Inuit carvings for inspiration.

Learn to hand build using beautiful clay, different ceramic techniques and some colourful finishes.

What a wonderful Summer Program, and how hard to believe it wasn’t even a fortnight ago.

The four-week program was full of excitement for Vala participants and facilitators alike, with countless characters played and stories told.

And so, once again, the Vala team are delighted to announce that submissions are OPEN for Aeondawn.

Aeondawn is Vala’s magazine, where we collect the creative work of students and staff to remember and celebrate the dramatic adventures we all had together.

And not just students and staff!

If your head is buzzing with the stories that you heard from your child, or you’re a Spark with a strong memory of an exciting interface, we’d be delighted to read and admire your submissions as well.

All you need to do for a chance to get your work published in our magazine is send it to our email, whether it is a short story, essay, comic strip, piece of art, map, or something so imaginative we can’t even anticipate it.

What a wonderful Summer Program, and how hard to believe it wasn’t even a fortnight ago.

The four-week program was full of excitement for Vala participants and facilitators alike, with countless characters played and stories told.

And so, once again, the Vala team are delighted to announce that submissions are OPEN for Aeondawn.

Aeondawn is Vala’s magazine, where we collect the creative work of students and staff to remember and celebrate the dramatic adventures we all had together.

And not just students and staff!

If your head is buzzing with the stories that you heard from your child, or you’re a Spark with a strong memory of an exciting interface, we’d be delighted to read and admire your submissions as well.

All you need to do for a chance to get your work published in our magazine is send it to our email, whether it is a short story, essay, comic strip, piece of art, map, or something so imaginative we can’t even anticipate it.

The Bungendore Show is a famous country show and family day out! It features equestrian shows, dachshund races and a pet parade . It always has a fabulous display of local produce for purchase and generally admiring. We were very happy when our energetic caterer Ruth (of Scrumper’s Garden) decided to decorate the hall with our Animal Panels from the previous Canberra Show.

Here is a little gallery for your enjoyment.

A deep Sea Scene welcomes people into the hall

Glorious produce with Butterflies

Chook poo and the Producers

Thylacines and Leopards

Antarctica and the elephants

We love to combine art and good food and believe that they are inseparable elements for a good life.

Next week is the first week of after school classes here at Aeoncademy and we always start the term with a week of Introductory Sessions. Instead of our usual division into classes of Sparks, Vala and Creative catalyst at 4pm, everyone will be joining in with group activities representing all the classes!

Time Bandits negotiate for The Map

Here is our line up for term 1 of 2018. Art classes are in the top row, followed by Vala’s drama classes and then the Sparks cyclical forays into both programs + World Cooking.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Week One

Intro Sessions

Student free day

Intro sessions

All students start – Vala Games + Bird project.

Lego.

Intro sessions

Vala Games + Bird project –

Seed Planting

IntroSessions

Vala Games + Bird project –

Free time clay

Vala Games

Week Two

Cardboard City Pt1

Autumnal Prints 1

Under the Microscope 1

Pixies Tea Party 1

Giant Bubbles

READY PLAYER CHARACTER

READY PLAYER CHARACTER

READY PLAYER CHARACTER

READY PLAYER CHARACTER

Cornucopia

Carboard City

MINI PLAYER CHARACTER

World Cooking

Pixie Cup

Week Three

Cardboard City 2

Autumnal Prints 2

Under the Microscope 2

Pixies Tea Party 2

Cooking

Days of Narnia- The Lion, the Witch and the Wolves: The Waste and the Wild

Golden Age of Greek Heroes- the Odyssey: Cave of the Cyclops

Return to The Mountain (The Dwarf Trilogy)- Fragments of a Map: The Troll Woods

People of the Old Stone Age: Summer Heights

Cornucopia

DRAMATIC MAKE-BELIEVE Days of Narnia- ‘Friends in the Forest’

WC

Magnified Drawings

DRAMATIC MAKE-BELIEVE- People of the Old Stone Age- ‘Raiders at the Ford’

Week Four

Cardboard City 3

Autumnal Prints 3

Under the Microscope 3

Pixies Tea Party 3

Vala Games

Days of Narnia- The Lion, the Witch and the Wolves: The Waste and the Wild

Golden Age of Greek Heroes- the Odyssey: Cave of the Cyclops

Return to The Mountain (The Dwarf Trilogy)- Fragments of a Map: The Troll Woods

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The Aeoncademy Centre

We operate a boutique Outside School-Hours Centre offering After School classes and Holiday Programs based in Yarralumla. We provide the quintessential Aeoncademy ‘Education through Creativity’ experience.